Page 26 of His Good Girl

That thought kept me still for a long time. Then I remembered how she had sat in the chair across from me and told the truth even when it cost her, and how she had asked if I thought she could do it, hating herself a little for needing the answer.

Dinner could be a kindness.

Dinner could also be a mistake.

Both things could be true.

At 4:18, I picked up my phone and texted her before I could turn restraint into cowardice and call it morality.

Avery, it’s Callum. You did well today. I know tomorrow is a formal start, but before that, I’d like to have dinner with you tonight if you’re free. It’s not an interview. Just dinner, so we can catch up properly. I’ll pick you up at seven.

I stared at the message.

Too commanding.

I changed the last line.

I can pick you up at seven.

Too soft.

I changed it back.

I’ll pick you up at seven.

Then, because I was not completely insane, I added:

Only if you’re comfortable with that.

I sent it.

For a few seconds, nothing happened. The message sat there beneath her name, delivered but unanswered, and I felt the unfamiliar irritation of being a man waiting on a woman’s text like some adolescent with a borrowed car and no plan.

Then three dots appeared.

Vanished.

Appeared again.

I leaned back in my chair and looked toward the window, forcing myself not to watch the screen.

The phone finally buzzed.

Avery:Dinner sounds nice. Seven works.

A second message followed almost immediately.

Avery:Should I bring anything? My resume? More paperwork? Emotional damage organized by category?

I laughed once, alone in my office, and the sound moved strangely through the room.

Me:Just yourself, Avery.

I set the phone face down on the desk before I could write anything else.

Outside, the rain had finally stopped, leaving the city washed and bright beneath a mottled sky. Somewhere down there, Avery was probably standing in her small apartment, overthinking what to wear, what this meant, what it did not mean, whether dinner with her godfather on the night before her first day of work was harmless or dangerous or both.

I wished I could have told her.